Just Dance

Feeling completely awake in the pre-dawn darkness, Artemis had decided she may as well get some more out of her waking hours than she would from just laying about pretending she was sleeping. She left her vulpix snoozing in their balls, not wanting to disturb them during their rare moments of peace (for her, although she supposed it was peaceful for them too).

Hands clasped behind her head, she walked down the route with controlled slow steps, forcing herself to take it easy -- it's not like she had a destination any way, she was just cruising for, uh, well for no reason either, come to think of it. Enjoying the walk immensely, the trainer felt she simply must break out into song. That would wake the locals, though, the ones that weren't up like her, that is of course. They were already awake, you see.

Instead, she settled on whistling. Really loudly... when she actually succeeded in producing the right sound. She needed a bit of practice. Well, no worries then! She had hours until one of her vulpix would wake up and feel the need to interrupt Artemis' free musical show. Hours! hour and hour and hour and maybe hour!

If you weren't assuming it, begin picturing her not keeping her posture still for long when there was muzak playing in her head, and sort of flailing and head-banging and whatever "dance" movements the spirit of song compelled her to perform. Because that was totally what she was doing as she jigged and slid and moonwalked around Route One, until after about fifteen minutes or so of that she completely forgot she'd come out here for the company of pokemon or people, and not to practice for Narian Idol.

Sazlo has felt completely awake in said pre-dawn hours, and had decided to just lay up against a rock on the side of the route, looking up at the sky. Scy and Teal were out with him. He didn't have their pokeballs any more, so he couldn't really return them, and they had completely refused staying behind in Belle while he went out and wandered. Though, they had gotten tired and had laid down to rest their eyes. Resting their eyes had quickly turned into them quietly snoring while cuddled up to each other beside Sazlo.

He looked down at his two pokemon and smiled. He rested a hand on the back of Teal's neck, and as soon as his hand touched fur, she wiggled, trying to get closer to Scy, even though she really couldn't. He smiled again and looked up at the sky. There were lots of stars out, they way he liked it. He had just closed his eyes to draw in all of the sounds of nature when suddenly, someone's whistling caught his attention. He wasn't really worried he was going to get hurt, seeing as how he now knew no one that had a grudge against him. Instead, he slowly stood up and stretched.

Scy lifted his head up and looked at his trainer. Sazlo made a small gesture saying 'we're not going anywhere, go back to sleep.' Scy nodded and laid his head back down beside Teal's. Sazlo looked down the road and saw the producer of said whistling music. He mostly stifled his laugh when he saw her doing a little dance, though probably not quite enough for her not to hear him. Oh well, He though, She'll run into me here in a few seconds anyway... So he just stood there, waiting for his fellow trainer to run into him, though preferrably not literally...

Well that was just silly, wasn't it?

Expecting Artemis to not run into someone.

I mean, if she didn't do it accidentally, she was certainly going to do it intentionally, after all.

She hadn't heard a thing, but after finishing up a song (made up completely in her own funny little mind, of course), Artemis had to decide whether to make up one of her own again or pick someone else's, and while she was debating that it went quiet all around, and she realized she should probably open her eyes and see just where she was.

But she didn't see where she was. Instantly, almost magically, she saw someone standing along the path just a little ways ahead.

Now, at first, he was just a dude in the starlight. Then, after she dropped her arms back to her side and stared at him curiously while walking forward as if in a trance, he was someone familiar. And THEN, in a rush, he was that guy who'd taken care of Rike when her restless spirit took over and she left town, and she was pretty sure he'd been at a party or six. There were just so many she lost count, as one does when one attends allllllll the festivities Nary had.

"Sazlo!" Artemis cried out in joy and sprinted forward, arms flinging around him as she glomped him like he'd just given her a vulpix made of solid diamond. "SAZ." In case he had forgotten, or something.

Happy face.

She did run into him, it seems, though thankfully not how he imagined it. When he was glomped, he didn't really have enough time to put his foot behind him or anything, and since he wasn't really all that big of a person, the force had knocked him backwards. He landed on his back with a slight "oomph", though he smiled the whole time. He returned her hug with his own and said, "Hiya!" He looked around as much as he could laying on his back, but didn't see any vulpixes. He said to her, "What? No band of Vulpixes following you around?"

Scy and Teal had heard Art shout, so they decided to poke their heads up to see what it was. Though they couldn't really see who it was, because when they looked, it was just a blurry, fast moving mass, but then saw that it was Artemis who had just glomped Sazlo. They both smiled and stood up. Scy opened his mouth widely to let out a huge yawn and stretched similar to the way a cat stretches. Teal didn't yawn, though she did stretch herself. They walked over to the two pokemon trainers and sat down on either side of Sazlo.

Yippee! He remembered <3

Before answering, she decided, quite unexpectedly, that she would like to stand up, and thus she straightened up a bit and hopped back before offering a hand in case he wanted to do the same. What was he doing all sprawled out in the dirt like that for, the goof?

"Lazy bums," Artemis chatted on, "Said something 'bout being normal creatures unlike some people when I poked Raze, whatever she means, and went back to snorin' like a devil." She just didn't understand how you could be sleeping when you could be doing. Or dancing! Who didn't love to shake their groove thing.

Noticing his poké-compadres getting seated, Artemis was a victim of a short attention span (her own, specifically) and beamed at the furry faces. "Hiya!" She eyed them suspiciously, then nodded, satisfied with what she saw. "It's alright, you are definitely not victims of alien lobotomy. I can trust ya."

Sazlo smiled again and took the outstretched hand and stood up. He wiped the dust off himself, and then wiped his hands together, getting the random dust particles off that had collected.

He laughed when she called them lazy bums and replied, "Maybe they're not normal for not wanting to stay awak so late? It's so much better out here at night than during the day." He looked down at her pokeball belt and only saw three pokeballs. He tilted his head and said, "Did you lose the rest of your pokemon too?" It seemed like a lot of people were missing their pokemon. Maybe someone had gone on a stealing spree...

Scy and Teal blinked when they had been told that they had, in fact, not been lobotomized. Teal tilted her head at Artemis and said, "Who says that aliens can't be trusted? Maybe they're way the crap out there, with their own kinda pokemon?" Scy blinked and looked up at the sky. A small smiled stretched the stitches at the corner of his mouth and said, Makes me kinda wanna see them... Maybe they do?

Artemis as temporarily too preoccuppied with the question of alien trust funds to answer Sazlo right away. Er, trustworthiness.

"Oh, no aliens are arright, from what I can tell." Because she'd met so many of them, you know. She leaned in close, wide-eyed for dramatic effect. "It's when they get inside your brainz that I start getting suspicious. I don't trust anything that touches my frontal lobe, she stated with conviction. Which was... pretty wise, all in all, if not often very practical. It had never occurred to her to question the existence of alien pokémon. She just sort of looked blankly at Scy in mild confusion and fascination, as if he'd grown a carrot out of his ear all the sudden. Was he implying that there might be planets without pokémon?

"Preposterous!" Artemis announced.

And then immediately turned back to Sazlo with a faint, uncertain smile.

"Ya know, I've been thinkin' something ain't right, but all the same, I can't recollect much about what's missing if something -- or someones -- is'r are. Is that what it is?" The last was said quietly and thoughtfully to herself, although Sazlo probably heard. After a short pause, she shrugged, and her grin turned back up a notch. "Well mate, whaddya say we go lookin' for 'em together then? Two heads are better'n none, and stuff."

Teal cocked her head at Artemis when she said that they all probe into brains and do some kinda mind control thing or some such. She then replied Who says all aliens probe into people's / pokemon's minds? Maybe they're out there, scared of the same thing, so that's why they do it in the first place, making sure that we aren't going to probe into their minds. It's a vicious cycle... She could be philosophical sometimes when she wanted to be... There was a lot going through her mind all the time, and no one could know just how much.

Preposterous? You don't think they have pokemon of their own? He figured that she was saying that there were only pokemon on this world. He had a tendency to be slow sometimes.

Sazlo nodded when Artemis asked him if he wanted to go looking for them. He said to her, "Well, I hope two are are better than none... Though, where do you think we should start looking first?" He had absolutely no idea, so he hoped she would have an idea.